August 3, 2009
caryrandolph: Surely some meaning can be derived from my chronology of chronographs. When first infatuated with timepieces my wrist looked vaguely similar to the one above, laden with silver bangles and my mother’s charms and a Swiss Army knock-off found deep in the bowels of Chinatown. High school graduation brought the Tag Heuer I wear now - a spartan stainless steel affair that perfectly marries the masculine and feminine and is currently married to my grandmother’s sterling I.D., a gift from her naval lieutenant brother Jack. Every time I go home I take off my Tag at the dinner table. My father asks, “Is your ticker ticking?” and shakes it, holds it to his ear, rebukes me for its most recent scrapes, and then expounds on the merits of wearing men’s watches. I’ve heard it since I was old enough to read an analog, Daddy’s lecture that no daughter of his should wear a lady watch, if only because those prissy bracelets lose their value with time. At seventeen, standing over that glass case, in love with an automatic, not even Papa Randolph could deter me. But oh, I see how I was mistaken! How only a man’s watch is good enough, how even that fake Canal Street chrono (because it always goes back to New York now, doesn’t it?) is more my speed, how they appreciate more with time, how I appreciate more my father’s advice, six years later, and how I’d give anything to dig up all that old silver jewelry and stack it wrist to elbow and remember being sixteen and getting drunk off two Zimas and falling down the stairs. Which is how, since you asked, I lost the birdcage charm and possibly the anchor, and why, although they have since been retrieved, they now rest unappreciated in my grandmother’s old jewelry box, stamped in gold with her initials on top. Thus I plan to wrap up 2009 with my wrist wrapped in metal, reviving in some small detail my youth and all the family ghosts and all the good advice, and I will start, in part, with this purchase, the Timex military, at least until Christmas brings me chance to pilfer my pop’s top drawer. (Photo, as usual, via Tea & Strumpets.)

caryrandolph:

Surely some meaning can be derived from my chronology of chronographs. When first infatuated with timepieces my wrist looked vaguely similar to the one above, laden with silver bangles and my mother’s charms and a Swiss Army knock-off found deep in the bowels of Chinatown. High school graduation brought the Tag Heuer I wear now - a spartan stainless steel affair that perfectly marries the masculine and feminine and is currently married to my grandmother’s sterling I.D., a gift from her naval lieutenant brother Jack.

Every time I go home I take off my Tag at the dinner table. My father asks, “Is your ticker ticking?” and shakes it, holds it to his ear, rebukes me for its most recent scrapes, and then expounds on the merits of wearing men’s watches. I’ve heard it since I was old enough to read an analog, Daddy’s lecture that no daughter of his should wear a lady watch, if only because those prissy bracelets lose their value with time. At seventeen, standing over that glass case, in love with an automatic, not even Papa Randolph could deter me.

But oh, I see how I was mistaken! How only a man’s watch is good enough, how even that fake Canal Street chrono (because it always goes back to New York now, doesn’t it?) is more my speed, how they appreciate more with time, how I appreciate more my father’s advice, six years later, and how I’d give anything to dig up all that old silver jewelry and stack it wrist to elbow and remember being sixteen and getting drunk off two Zimas and falling down the stairs. Which is how, since you asked, I lost the birdcage charm and possibly the anchor, and why, although they have since been retrieved, they now rest unappreciated in my grandmother’s old jewelry box, stamped in gold with her initials on top.

Thus I plan to wrap up 2009 with my wrist wrapped in metal, reviving in some small detail my youth and all the family ghosts and all the good advice, and I will start, in part, with this purchase, the Timex military, at least until Christmas brings me chance to pilfer my pop’s top drawer.

(Photo, as usual, via Tea & Strumpets.)

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